Preached on February 8, 2026, Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Isaiah 58:1-12.
We’re in Isaiah again today, but a different section of it. Isaiah’s 66 chapters can be broken down into three parts, chapters 1-39, 40-55, and 56-66. There is some dispute about the division, but there is scholarly consensus that part of the book was written during the 8th century BCE, when the Assyrians were attacking, as I’ve discussed before, and part of the book was written during or after the Babylonian exile two centuries later. Today’s reading is in Third Isaiah, thought to be written after the Israelites were freed from Babylonian captivity.
Of course, the end of the exile did not mean that everything was hunky-dory. Judah had been ravaged by the Babylonians, Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed, and the Israelites were ruled by the Persian Empire. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah talk about the history of this period, during which the nation was re-established and the Temple was rebuilt. The Persians still held ultimate power, but at least the people could return to their homes and worship their God.
So, what kind of society would they build? Apparently, one just like before. The wealthy and powerful were still exploiting their workers. There were still poor, hungry, homeless people in the land. Justice was still withheld from the worthy. God’s people were neglecting their kin, turning a blind eye to their suffering.
And so, Isaiah spoke up. He said, essentially, “Remember all that stuff I told you before we were conquered? Yeah, that all still matters.” The people had rebuilt the Temple and resumed worship. That was a good thing, necessary but not sufficient. Isaiah called them to build a society that would approach God’s designs for humanity. A society where everyone could flourish.
The people were worshipping, praying, fasting, crying out to God. They wanted God to be on their side. I’m reminded of Johnny Cash’s song, “Man In Black”:
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the timesAnd I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin’ that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died
Believin’ that we all were on their side
America in the 1960’s was, in some ways, no different from post-exilic Judah. There are always poor, beaten-down, hopeless, hungry people in society. There are always people in prison who don’t belong there, either because of their innocence or because of disproportionate punishment. And yet, there are always people who believe that the Lord is on their side as they try to force their will on the world.
In America in the 2020’s, the issue is Christian Nationalism. People who claim the name of Christ, who worship in ways that we would all recognize, and yet whose actions are directly counter to what we understand to be the message of love and reconciliation at the heart of the Gospel. Christian Nationalists are the inheritors of the attitudes of the elites in ancient Judah, who would go to the Temple to give their sacrifices, who would fast and pray, and yet who would also exploit their neighbors instead of loving them.
How can we truly have God on our side? How can we truly draw near to God, or be blessed by God drawing near to us? By being on God’s side, on the side of a positive peace, of shalom, of healing, wholeness, reconciliation, and universal flourishing. There is NO ONE that God does not love. Therefore, as we are called to care for God’s family, we are called to build a society that reflects God’s will: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, freeing the oppressed, and seeking restorative justice that resolves the anger, the hatred, and the economic forces that lie at the root of violence.
We heard this same message from Micah last week:
6“With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?
Worship is a wonderful thing. Worship is the way we encounter God and renew our commitment to our calling. Worship is the way we connect to people who share our understanding of God’s commandments. Worship is how we demonstrate our gratitude for divine Providence, as we also ask for God’s forgiveness for the ways we fall short of our calling and seek God’s help as we navigate this broken world. Worship is a necessary component of our spiritual journey.
But it’s not enough. If worship leaves you unchanged, or worse, then we have failed as a worshipping community. The Internet is replete with stories about the after-church crowd being horrible to waitstaff at restaurants. I’ll confess to at least one incident where I did not live up to my calling at Sunday lunch. If we think about worship as a way to demonstrate that we are better than people who don’t worship, as a way to mark us as insiders in God’s family, as a way to get puffed up with self-righteousness, then the church has failed. Worship should energize you to do God’s work in the world.
And what is that work? To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Humbly. Or as Isaiah says, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. To share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them. All of these actions and more are necessary to truly be a part of God’s family.
We are not saved because of our good works. We are saved and grafted onto the Vine so that we might be Branches that yield good fruit. If we do not follow through with God’s commands, then what’s the point of being a Christian?
Isaiah’s preaching sits as an important hinge point in God’s message to humanity. Early in Israelite history, the Twelve Tribes were slaves in Egypt. God chose Moses to lead them out of slavery and to the Promised Land of Canaan. In Exodus 6, God commands Moses, “6 Say therefore to the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.” Isaiah harkens back to this foundational message when he tells the people to remove the yoke, to break every yoke that oppresses God’s people. Then he speaks to the coming of Christ with a message that has echoes in Matthew 25: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, loose the bonds of injustice, because when we do, it is as if we are caring for Christ himself. We are all Christ’s siblings, part of God’s family, so we need to care for one another as an act of devotion to God.
And what does the Bible mean when it talks about justice or injustice? So often, we understand “justice” to mean “vengeance.” That is retributive justice. That’s the idea that someone who does wrong deserves proportionate punishment. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. But as author Louis Fischer wrote, “The shreds of individuality cannot be sewed together with a bayonet; nor can democracy be restored according to the Biblical injunction of an “eye for an eye” which, in the end, would make everybody blind.”
The Bible, particularly the Prophets and the New Testament, promote restorative justice. It is not enough to punish the guilty. One must raise up the innocent. Jesus did not punish tax collectors; instead, they were inspired to make restitution to those they had defrauded. When Isaiah commands the people to “loose the bonds of injustice,” he is seeking a society in which everyone is free to flourish, rather than being held captive by the rich and powerful. It’s not about tearing down the elite, but about raising up the downtrodden. It’s about eliminating the injustice of unfair wealth disparity, of exploitation of the powerless.
Such a society—one in which everyone is free to flourish—would be the kingdom of heaven here and now. It would be an existence suffused with God’s Spirit. How else can we overcome our desire to rule others, to defend ourselves and our property by oppressing those who are outside our circle? Only by the power of God’s love can we, as Branches grafted onto the Vine, bear fruits of the Spirit. And if we do, our light shall break forth. God will indeed be with us. We will BE the Light of the World. God will be with us, to care for us, to protect us, to help us when we are in distress. If we build a society where everyone can flourish, our gloom will become bright as noon.
And then, as Jesus said, we will be like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. If we commit ourselves to building such a society, we must be willing to shine forth in the world. We cannot be content to hide away in our precious sanctuary, worshipping God with our words and our songs while our actions outside these four walls look more like those who worship the almighty dollar than El Shaddai. No, we must let our good works be light to the world and carry the glory of the Lord to those who are in darkness.
This portion of Isaiah was written about 2600 years ago. Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and his later lesson about the sheep and the goats and the judgment of the nation were given to his followers about 2000 years ago. Yet the problems they described are still with us today. Each new generation re-invents ways to oppress the powerless, to perpetuate homelessness and poverty, to withhold justice.
Look around. The world is on fire. The interconnected world created to prevent World War III is coming apart at the seams. People are afraid of the government, for good reasons. The US Congress is just barely functional, lurching from emergency to emergency without ever really solving problems. We talk at each other instead of with each other, never really seeking understanding—only dominance. How can we get out of this mess?
The only way is with the power of God’s love. Only by staying centered on Christ. Only by rejecting a theology that sees America as specially blessed and therefore incapable of doing wrong. Instead, we must see America for what it is: the latest flawed attempt to build a society that will enable everyone to flourish. Isaiah told the freed exiles that yes, they should worship the LORD, but more importantly, they should treat each other as the beloved children of God they all were. Isaiah’s message still holds today. Yes, we are called to come together and worship our Savior. But more than that, we are called to love everyone that God loves, to lift up the poor and oppressed, to make a society that enables everyone—everyone—to flourish. We are called to be Christ’s siblings in the kingdom of God, not exemplary citizens of any earthly nation or empire. We are called to see Christ in each person we encounter. Only then will we be a city on a hill, a light to the world. Only then will our light break forth like dawn with the glory of the LORD as our protector. Let us go forth from here, seeing the world as it truly is and working to transform it into the world God intends. Amen.
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